


Forever

by lasirene



Series: Broken Parts [1]
Category: X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Antarctica, Gen, One Shot, Reunions, implied Remy/Logan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-08-15 15:36:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8061943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lasirene/pseuds/lasirene
Summary: "Memory.  It was all he had left of a lot of things."





	

            He woke with a stuttering breath, the scent so fresh and alive in his mind that he could taste the echoes of it in his lungs.  Eyes flinched open, hands curling into fists around the tangled sheets.  He held the air in his lungs, trying to burn the taste of it into the organs.  But he had to breathe, and when the breath escaped him, it only left memory in its place.

            Memory.  It was all he had left of a lot of things.

            Logan sat up slowly, pawing at eyes that stung and ached in a way he had never been able to stand.  Crying was a sign of weakness, and weakness he would never show – not to foe, nor to friend.  He was the rock that everyone else leaned against.

            How long had it been?  He lost track somewhere in the haze of just getting by and dealing with the pain.  The pain of loss that was so familiar, and would never leave.

            He remembered the smile, the flash of blood red and midnight black eyes, the sweet lilt of that accent.  “I ain’ goin’ anywhere, Logan.  Ya stuck wit’ Remy.  Forever.”

            And now this.  Logan didn’t even know how it happened, how he died.  The one who knew the most was Rogue, and she didn’t seem to like to talk about it.

            “He’s dead, Logan,” she had snapped after a week of desperate, lost inquiries.  “He’s dead, he’s gone, that’s it!  He was a monstah anyway.”

            A monster.  And when he’d snarled at her to elaborate, she had gone into perfect detail.  The Morlocks that Remy had led to their imminent death; the way their blood had flung through the air; who was there, who was on whose side; how Remy had managed to save one of them.  He hadn’t known, so he had said, and Logan believed that.  Gambit had never been the type to do such a terrible thing.

            And if something such as that made Remy into a monster, what was Logan?  Logan, who had killed people on orders, on impulse, on rage, on desire?

            When had he stood?  When had he gotten in the shower?  Why was it so cold?  Because it was morning, and Logan was thinking, and he did it best in the cold.  Heat made his brain addled and distracted, careless and feral.  Cold was his element.

            Not Remy’s element.  Had he been cold in the last moments?

            He wrenched the faucet to hot, gritting his teeth when it scalded his skin.  He didn’t want to think.  Thinking led to Remy, and Remy led to grief.  Because he had befriended him, had seen something in the young Cajun that had reminded him of himself.  A warrior, too proud to bow, too stubborn to die.  A man who ran off his own code of conduct and honor, and to Hell with everyone else.  A friend, something he had needed more than he had wanted to admit.

            But now his friend was gone.  And he had forgotten how to live without.

***

            It was another dull and dragging day.  None of them had been the same since Remy’s death.  It was as if all the color and vibrancy of the world had been bleached away; the impression of it was still there, but it was too faded to touch.  The world was a shadow of itself.

Or maybe Logan was the shadow.

            He was barely aware of anything; not the cold hardness of the floor beneath him, or the music blasting through the speakers so the furious drums shook the air.  Not the tang of sweat that always filled the training rooms, or that which stained his own skin.  Not the ache of his knuckles as they struck against the punching bag.  He was venting, trying to pour the feelings out of him in one physical display instead of another.

            He had not cried over Remy’s death.  He almost had, many times, but he had never let himself divulge in it.  Logan had no doubts that, if he started, he would not stop.  It was easier to pour it out in violent action instead.  All the pain, the sorrow, the loneliness.  The ache and agony of loss.  If he warred with this inanimate object long enough, he would scrape himself clean and raw of those feelings, and be left hollow and fresh.  Then he could move forward.

            He had tried to empty himself every day now.  Yet he was still drowning in it.

            His next hit was weak, the one after that weaker still.  When the bag stopped swaying under his assaults, he stopped bothering.  Battered and bruised knuckles pressed to the leather casing, the once snowy bandages wrapped around his hands now rusty with blood from the splits in his skin.  Red and raw and still aching, even after all this time.

            Logan blew out a long breath, his head dropping forward until his creased and troubled brow leaned against the heavy bag.  Lank strands of hair fell over his face as he stood, catching his breath and taking stock of the deep well of despairs that still stood.

            Months.  The realization his him so hard that he actually whimpered, no better than a kicked dog.  It had been months.  How many, he did not know or want to know; too many to count.  The seasons had shifted and bled away, and the colors were all too dull for him to note what they were.  Remy was dead, and Logan was barely surviving.

            He hadn’t felt this way since–

            Logan jerked away, eyes flying open to a world bleared by tears nearly shed.  He clawed the bandages from his hands, staggering half blind across the floor until he nearly tripped over the trashcan. He snarled at it, dropping the soiled strips of fabric into its hungry mouth.

            Damn Remy for getting so fully under his skin.  Damn himself for caring about the kid.  Damn his heart for being weak enough to let people in again and again and _again_.  He never learned, he never would learn.

            He shut his eyes, scrubbed at them again.  Flimsy and faltering, walking a narrow edge between composure and falling apart.  He couldn’t fall apart.  He just couldn’t.

            He ducked into the locker rooms, scrambling his locker open and dragging out the clothes he had brought down with him.  He’d take another shower, get dressed, and get around to business–

            He caught a glimpse of his reflection – the hollow, empty eyes, the shadows of sleeplessness underneath; a clear image which he could not argue against even as he fled it.

            Something inside him had been broken, and it could not be repaired.

            _Breathe, just breathe, just get in the damn shower and breathe_.

            Except when he finally did breathe in the thick, hot air, it caught somewhere in that broken part of him.  And when it finally jumped free, it came out as a shivering keen, chased by the tears that he had held back for months.

            Maybe he had to break.

***

            Catatonic was not a natural state for him, but after all the tears, it was all he could afford.

            The shower was decimated.  He’d have to pay Xavier.  Later.  Once he remembered how to move.

            Sitting in the empty training room, perfectly still and perfectly silent.  The automatic lights had shut off a long time ago.  It was as dark as the well of despair inside of him.

            The physical training hadn’t emptied it.  The crying hadn’t emptied it.  Nothing was going to empty it.

            Nothing except reversion.

            He could slip into the woods, drop being human and go feral.  He had done it before, to try and recover from the loss of Rose, and it had worked then.  Could it work again?

            Was this as bad?

            Yes.  In fact, it was worse.

            It was worse than knowing that the first person he had ever loved had died at his hand.

            Because Remy had been alone, had believed no one had any faith in him anymore.  That the person who had loved him thought he was a monster.  That everyone thought he was a monster.  He had died, alone, with no one to hold him, no one to tell him they knew better, to tell him they knew he wasn’t a monster.

            That they loved him in spite of his mistakes.

            Logan tried to imagine what it must have been like, to be tried for a crime that was not purposefully committed.  To be told that it didn’t matter that he tried to stop it or save anyone.  To have the person you loved – the person who supposedly loved you – not stand in your defense.  To have no friends try to help you.  To be betrayed by the people you thought you could trust.

            And why had they done that?  What drove them to such a thing?  Why such betrayal?

            Could he ever forgive them for it?

***

            When he finally rose from the grave of his tears, returning to the ebb and flow of the surface of the school, there was something different in the air.  The bleached stains of paleness were tinged with a splash of newness, of color.  The emptiness had been stuffed full of tension, irritability.  Anger.  And something else, something beneath.  Unease, insecurity.  Fear.

            Logan felt a tinge of curiosity.  Interest.  Something that had been so foreign as of late.

            Perhaps the tears had done him some good after all.

            As he traced the scents of high emotion closer and closer to the rec room, he started to catch the sharpness of raised voices.  He almost turned away; arguments among his teammates weren’t unheard of, but he tried to keep out of them unless he was already involved.  And yet . . .

            He nudged the ajar door open with the toe of an old, battered motorcycle boot, his hands pushed in his pockets as he slid into the room.  He would lurk in the back, eavesdrop on the subject; if it was of no concern to him, he’d leave.  Go find something to distract himself before the sadness wormed back in.  Or maybe it would worm in anyway, and he would let it sweep him away again.

            “-can we possibly trust him, after what he did?!”  It was Warren, young and fair, proud and vain.  Angry.  An avenging angel in that moment.  “How many people have died because of him?”

            “He is not necessarily the same man.”  The molten gold of Ororo’s voice was tempered with a spark of her lightning; her temper was fraying, and Logan felt a faint flutter of pity for whoever was stupid enough to push her any further.  “Things happen.  We have all done things we are not proud of.  Just as you have.”

            “I never led a society to massacre!  He’s a killer.  A monster.”

            “People change-”

            Warren’s wings snapped open, making everyone jerk back or duck.  “I’m not going to stand for this!” the young man snapped.  “If Rogue won’t fly him back out to the ice, then I will!”

            The fear hit Logan like a ton of bricks – and so did the words, all of them.  He could feel his pupils contracting to pinpoints, rage simmering in his veins.  He lurched forward, stiff with fury beyond compare.  He kicked and shoved and yanked through the assemblage, ignoring the protests.

            “Wolvie – hey!  Careful!”

            “Jesus, Logan, what’s wrong with you?”

            “Logan, stand-  Dammit, Logan, are you listening to me?!”

            He shoved through the inner circle, lips peeling back in a snarl as he grabbed Warren by the arm and jerked him aside.  The young man gave a startled yelp, wings flailing as he fought for balance.  Logan couldn’t have cared less if he landed wrong and broke his neck.

            Ororo stood behind the chair, her hand tight on the back, her blue eyes fading from their stormy rage.  A few steps away, a somber and pale Rogue stood with her arms around herself; her eyes were fixed on Logan in a look that told him she knew she was in trouble in his book.  Scott’s fingers dug into his shoulder, ready to shake him and chastise him for so brutally shoving his way through his friends and family – and if he did open his mouth, Logan would hit him.

            Because in the chair, lounging with a carefully constructed expression that said to Hell with everyone else, was Remy LeBeau.

            Except the mask was crumbling away to a raw look that Logan had seen moments ago in the mirror, the look that had shattered him through.

            The look of a man who was drowning.

            Logan turned, staring at Rogue; he didn’t bother to try hiding the hurt, the confusion, the anger simmering beneath it all.  “You told me he was dead,” he whispered.

            “He lied ta us!”  She shook her head, holding a hesitant hand towards him.  “Honest, sugah, Ah did what Ah thought was best.”

            He smacked her hand away with a snarl.  “You lied.  You lied t’me.  I asked you again, and _again_ , about what happened, and you lied.”  His hands were shaking with the rage that was pulsing through his veins, and somehow the trembling finger he jabbed at her was even more emphatic for its erratic shivers.  “You can’t trust Remy for not telling the truth.  Why should I trust you for the same mistake?”

            “Logan,” she pleaded, her eyes wide in an expression that before had easily wrapped him around her finger and gotten her whatever she desired.

            No more.  Not after this.

            He turned from her, sweeping a gaze that was a challenge across the room.  Whoever wanted to lay into Remy would have to go through Logan.

            No one rose to the challenge.  They shuffled their feet, shuffled away.  Warren left, muttering mutinously under his breath.  Bit by bit, the room trickled out; even Rogue, finally accepting defeat, slipped away.

            The silence was thick between them.  Stifling.  Logan did not, perhaps could not, turn towards the other man.  It was impossible.  He had been left for dead.  Abandoned.  And yet, somehow . . .

            A stuttering breath, the scent so fresh and alive in his mind that he could taste the echoes of it in his lungs.  Remy’s scent – cigarette smoke trapped in leather, the spice of Louisiana caught in his blood, the warmth of summer sun – just as he had remembered it.

            The broken piece of him shivered, splintered; he could feel it shattering through his chest, climbing his throat and pressing against the back of his eyes.  He whimpered, a tiny sound that belonged not to a man but to a creature lost in a black sea.

            Maybe he had to break again.

            His legs caved beneath him, and he sat down hard, staring at the floor by his toes in a desperate attempt to keep himself under control.  He couldn’t, he couldn’t, he _couldn’t_.

            “Logan . . . ?”

            “She told me you were dead.”

            The tears stalked in again.  But as they welled up and over, he felt Remy collapse beside him, grab him and cling to him like a man who was drowning.

            And this time, as he poured out the months of despair and anguish and loneliness, he felt the well begin to empty.

***

            The world had swum back into vibrant colors and piercing clarity.  No more bleached colors, no more dullness.  The world was no longer a shadow.  Logan was no longer a shadow.

Long after the tears had dried from his skin, they sat together on the floor, clinging to the other.  They spoke in low voices, both exhausted and emptied as the night grew deep.  Logan knew he sounded like a broken record, and yet . . .

            “You’re actually alive.”

            “Oui, cher.  Been over dat point a good few times now.”

            And yet . . .

            “I missed you.”

            Remy was quiet for a moment, fingers that had been running in absent designs over Logan’s shoulders falling still for a moment.  Slipping up, just pushing into his hair to trace across his scalp.  His eyes, so strange in their colors, were soft and gleaming.

            “I missed you, too.”

            And yet . . .

            Those long fingers pushed into his hair deeper, the proud head bowing until Remy’s forehead leaned against Logan’s.  Logan could see his lips moving, could just hear his breath escaping in a pattern that was almost words.

            And yet.

            “Dis’s why I came back,” Remy rasped out.  His voice was raw, jagged in a way it had not been during their whole long conversation.  “Fo’ you.  I missed you, more den I could bear.  At night, de stars, dey were so bright an’ so close an’ I always t’ought a you, an’ it was so damn cold and I t’ought a you, an’ I was so alone an’ if I could’ve had jus’ one damn person an’ one alone I’d have picked you, an’ I never wanted ta see someone again so much as I wanted ta see ya, an’ Stormy asked me ta come back an’ try ta fix t’ings, but I jus’ wanted dis, Logan, I wanted you, I don’ care ‘bout anyone else long as ya don’ hate me for what I did, I didn’t mean ta hurt dem I didn’t _know_ what was gonna happen, ya gotta believe me, s'il vous plaît, mon cher, s'il vous plaît-”

            “I know, Remy, I know.  I know you.  I know.”  Logan leaned forward, shifting until he could nuzzle at his hair.  “I believe you.  I’d never’ve left you.”

            “Ya won’?  Even after . . . ?”

            “Even after.  You’re stuck with me, Rems.”

            The young Cajun broke into a grin, one so full of relief and wonder that Logan felt his chest cave in a bit.  Had he thought he wouldn’t forgive him?

            “Forever,” Remy whispered before finally leaning back.  “Right?”

            “Right,” Logan replied, unable to quite keep from grinning himself.  “Forever.”


End file.
